20 to Watch in RI in 2020: Brett Johnson and Berke Bakay

Thursday, January 02, 2020

GoLocalProv Business Team

 

View Larger +

Berke Bakay and Brett Johnson, Fortuitous Partners

In early December, Rhode Island was introduced to Fortuitous Partners — a company led by Brett Johnson and Berke Bakay.

Fortuitous is proposing a $400 million project, a mix of sports, retail, office and residential — a project promised to transform a struggling city and region.

The two have complex backgrounds complete with big successes and questionable deals.

GET THE LATEST BREAKING NEWS HERE -- SIGN UP FOR GOLOCAL FREE DAILY EBLAST

Johnson, a Brown University grad is the frontman in Rhode Island. Bekay has recently had his troubles.

Initial questions from GoLocal about Bakay’s track business record first sparked claims from Johnson’s public relations team that Bakay is not on the Rhode Island project and that he is not involved in sports.

"Bakay’s not in the sports space and isn’t involved in the project," wrote Brett Johnson's public relations spokesperson David Preston in an email to GoLocal.

When GoLocal pointed out that Bakey is the co-chairman of the Phoenix Rising soccer team and a top-tier equity partner in Fortuitous both in partnership with Johnson, the narrative changed that Bakay would not be directly involved in the Pawtucket project.

Bakay is inextricably tied to Johnson via their co-chairmanship roles in the phoenix soccer team — Phoenix Rising — and well as Fortuitous.

Bankruptcy - Investors Lose Everything

Just prior to his role in Fortuitous, Bakay headed Kona Grill, the 45 restaurant chain that was publicly traded on NASDAQ. Bakay's tenure at Kona Grill is absent from his bio on LinkedIn.

By August of 2018 Kona Grill announced that its Board of Directors appointed Jim Kuhn to succeed Bakay as President and Chief Executive Officer. Bakay was appointed as Executive Chairman of the Board of Directors and would "remain with the Company in a strategic role.”

“Leading Kona Grill over the past six years has been a tremendous honor. We’ve doubled the number of restaurants, started franchising internationally and domestically and have positioned ourselves as a truly unique brand serving global cuisine in a contemporary ambiance,” said Bakay at the time of the leadership change.

Within months, the company was filing for bankruptcy and the company was purchased out of bankruptcy for pennies on the dollar. While the company was in distress, one business tracking database says that Bakay still collected nearly $500,000 in compensation in his last year at the top executive. Bakay has refused to reply to repeated press calls.

The Phoenix Business Journal reports investors lost everything in the bankruptcy, "Investors in the Kona Grill restaurant chain won’t recoup anything from its $25 million bankruptcy buyout, the company made clear on Tuesday. In a filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, Scottsdale-based Kona Grill said “No portion of the proceeds of the asset sale will be distributed to holders of its common stock.”

In Bakay’s final year as president and CEO the stock fells from a 12-month high of $13 per share to $2.50 — an 80 percent loss in stock value.

Brett Johnson defends Bakay’s performance at Kona. “Berke Bakay is not involved in the Pawtucket proposal. Berke does, however, have a lengthy record of business success. He also played a central role in the success of Phoenix Rising.  As you know, Berke was neither President/ CEO nor on the board of directors when Kona filed for chapter 11 reorganization.  In fact, between his end date as CEO and the chapter 11 filing no less than five people served as CEO,” said Johnson in an email to GoLocal.

 

Related Articles

 

Enjoy this post? Share it with others.

 
 

Sign Up for the Daily Eblast

I want to follow on Twitter

I want to Like on Facebook